River
by Leaf-The-Muddy-Stormbringer
Summary: When a girl and her roommates move in next door to Dib, he and Zim soon find out just how much she knows about their separate organizations, and her past relationships with each of them. My first story, I suck at summaries, R&R please!
1. Unpacking

**DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN INVADER ZIM OR ANY COMPANY PRODUCT IN HERE. Jhonen Vasquez does, and you should all go worship his awesome!**

**CLAIMER: River, Toby, and Fletch are mine. MINE, capisce!**

**Okay, on with the story!**

River's POV

_Six months in the Crazy House For Boys hadn't "helped" me like those so-called doctors said it would. In fact, I think it just added to my growing "insanity" in this world. Trapped in a rubber room sitting in my crazy bucket for weeks on end, I spent lots of time plotting ways to escape. When it was time for dinner one night, and they let us out to eat, I met another mental patient named Toby, who was in contact with a guy named Fletch. Toby lent me an earpiece so I could talk three-way with them, and in 6 months Fletch was able to disguise himself as a doctor claiming to have orders to take us to a research facility. We were out. The name's River by the way. I'm a 14 year old girl who ended up in the boy's crazy house because apparently some people were too stupid to figure out I was in the wrong place. Since we escaped with Fletch, we moved across America from California to Michigan so the authorities wouldn't find us. Not that they would, but hey, we needed outta that area anyway. It was getting too dangerous since our friend Nny disappeared. Dirty old men and jerks who wanted nothing more than to…um, well…you know. Icky stuff._

"Toby! Where's my trunk? I can't find it anywhere!" I yelled out, waiting for a response. The movers had just dropped off our furniture and other belongings, and if they lost my stuff, I swear I'll—

"Gah!" I heard a loud thud from upstairs, figuring he'd just fallen off the window seat. "I-It's in the kitchen under the table, Riv." A small groan, then the sounds of him slowly getting up and stretching, enjoying the feeling of his muscles loosening and the small pops in his joints.

"Thanks, man." I got up from my perch on the arm of the chair and quickly found my trunk, dragging it upstairs into my room. It was painted in a dark green, and the ceiling was covered in glow in the dark stars. My bed was pushed up to the window, and an empty bookshelf on the end waited to be filled up with my junk. The TV in the corner was inviting me to hook up my GameCube, find my bean-bag chair, and play Pokemon Coliseum all night. There was some work to do. I opened my trunk next to my bed and pulled out my collection of manga, placing it carefully in alphabetical order on the top shelf before loading the next shelf with videogame cases and videocassette tapes. The bottom shelf was soon filled with random things. Snowglobes from Seattle and other cities so you could take them with you, an extra throw blanket, my collection of bumper stickers reserved for the Volkswagen bus I'll get someday. The bed was host to a horde of plushies, my closet was filled with clothing identical to the outfit I was wearing, and I soon found my beanbag chair next to the fridge, brought it up, and returned it to its old spot in front of my Toshiba. There was one more item I needed to find a spot for. My beautiful brown leather jacket. I turned to face the door and found a hook, which became its new home.

Giving the room one more look, I gave a satisfied nod and sunk down into my pillows, closing my eyes listening to the cars rushing past, the wind in the trees, a cat screeching as a dog barked...relaxing sounds.

"Excited for school, River?" Fletch asked, poking his head in. "Toby's a shaking nervous wreck as usual, I swear he isn't going to eat or sleep until he goes." Fletch shook his head, chuckling softly to himself before sitting on the edge of my bed.

"Where'd you go, Samuel Fletcher?" I asked, grinning as he winced at the use of his first name.

"Just checking out the area, that's all. There's a boy your age next door, Dib Membrane, was it? Plus the hospital gave me a job as a secretary, it offers good pay. The Hi-Skool's…nice, I guess."

"In other words it looks like it's been in a dump for a bazillion years?"

He shrugged, "yep. But it looks easy to get by there, grades and such. But just in case something happens, I got you a little something," he fiddled with a small object in his pocket.

"What is it?" I asked, curious. Another rabid hamster?

Fletch pulled the Mysterious Object of Doom out. It was a can of pepper spray. A big gorgeous can of freakin' pepper spray! "Fletcher!" I hollered, tackling him off the bed in a full glomp. He tried standing up and eventually succeeded with me attached to his leg and my new pepper spray, yelling like a nutcase, which I bet freaked out the neighbors. It did Toby, as he was walking past my room while I was still doing it. School won't be too bad.


	2. Mikey and Jude

**OKAY, chapter 2! I think it's about time I brought my two favorite OCs into the story. Don't hurt them, they're mah babies.**

**DISCLAIMER: I DON'T OWN ANY COMPANY PRODUCTS OR ANY PART OF INVADER ZIM.**

**CLAIMER: RIVER, MIKEY, AND JUDE ARE MINE! I HAVE MY NAME TATTOOED SOMEWHERE ON THEIR PERSONS.**

I was exploring the halls of Hi-Skool. In a few words, it was crappy. There was suspicious greasy slime oozing out of the walls, dim lights, spiders and webs, and the restrooms…okay, now's not the best time to share my breakfast with my new classmates.

I managed to find a mirror in my locker from the last resident, so I decided to check my appearance. My hair is brown, mid-neck length, thick, and spiky on the ends. My eyes are grey, and I'm wearing a tight black t-shirt, too-big green cargos that go up to my curve-thingy before I belt them, and plain black athletic sandals. Quickly running a hand through my hair, I took a deep breath, grabbed my books and my portable CD player and wandered down the hall until I found classroom 7.

"Class, this is another damned soul forced to come and get a so-called education. Speak, because from this moment on _I don't wanna hear another word out of you._"

I waved slowly to the class, sizing it up a little bit, "Name's River."

"Take your seat." Ms. Bitters pointed to an empty one in the back, which I took quickly. The woman _scared_ me. Like she was some kind of demon. I didn't get a chance to glance at anyone before the bell rang for lunch.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~In the halls~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"_This keeps on getting more depressing every day. When's it gonna be over, Mikey? I don't want to be in a place where no one can see or hear us." _

"_It's not so bad. There's some people that can, but they just don't pay attention."_

"_Optimist."_

"_Mhm.."_

They kept going back and forth like that, just bickering and going on again. "Um…hey, I'm pretty sure I can hear you guys unless I'm hallucinating," I whispered hesitantly. Suddenly, something—or someone—tackled me to the ground. I opened my eyes to be met with a warm chocolate brown pair. The guy was dragged off of me by another boy in a black leather jacket. Jacket Dude stared at me before kneeling down where I was still on the floor. His friend joined him and they both gazed at me like someone dropped me out of the sky. "Um…what?"

"_You can see us." _Jacket Dude stated slowly.

"Yeah, I can see you. Is that a problem or something?" I asked. They both shook their heads.

"_Um..well, um…this hasn't exactly happened in a long time. Not since we died, I guess._" Jacket Dude spoke as if it was a miracle. "_I'm Jude, and this is Mikey_—" he gestured to his friend "—_We died a good seven years ago in the underground classrooms, somehow didn't pass on and got stuck here, blah blah blah..."_ he stopped. "_How _can _you be speaking to us, let alone touching and seeing us?"_

I shrugged, "I'm not sure. Are you guys allowed to leave this place?"

Mikey plopped down next to me, "We can, we just choose not to. We can only go where we've gone already," now that I looked closer, they were slightly translucent with a faint blue glow outlining their bodies.

"Mikey, where'd you live before you died?"

"Over on 87th Avenue. Why?" he peered into my eyes curiously, as if they would somehow show what I was thinking.

I grinned, "Because that's where I live now. Whaddya guys say? Shack with me?"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Lunch~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"You won't get away with this, Zim! I will get you! And when I do, I'll turn you in to the police and witness the day your guts will be strewn out on an autopsy table!" a boy shouted. I looked up from my Mr. Shocker can to see a boy with dark spiky hair and a trenchcoat chasing after a green-skinned dude.

"Who're they?" I asked Jude.

He shrugged slightly, "The guy with the scythe hair is Dib, and he's a paranormal addict. Zim's an alien. Irken, I think. He really talks too much during his experiments. S'too easy to tell, but in the last seven years since Mikey and I have gone, it's gotten pretty weird around here. The whole earth is packed with paranormal phenomena, very incompetent people, danger at every turn, not to mention the alien activity going on."

I grinned crazily. "And the mental patients escaping! WOOHOO!" Jude stared at me like I was crazy, but Mikey just smiled softly. He knew, I guessed. "But I've seen aliens like Zim before. I just don't know where…"

**DUN DUN DAAAAAA! OKAY! R&R, I'm really sorry I'm late..**


End file.
